Where is all the new, good software?

Where is all the new, good software? 12 Oct, 2026 Here’s a question we see, especially from AI skeptics: if AI coding is so great, shouldn’t we be seeing more new, good software by now? Here are some answers. As usual in this style of post, these are conjectural, candidate answers, and I would give some of them little weight.

新的优质软件都在哪里？2026年10月12日。这是一个我们经常看到的问题，尤其是来自人工智能怀疑论者的问题：如果人工智能编程真的那么厉害，我们现在难道不应该看到更多新的、好的软件吗？以下是一些答案。像这类文章一贯的风格一样，这些都是推测性的候选答案，其中一些我并不太看重。

We are in fact seeing software improvement, in the form of fewer bugs and better performance. We are in fact seeing software improvement, in the form of more and better features in existing products. We are in fact seeing software improvement, but the “we” is very limited. Most people don’t adopt new software very often, so it’s not surprising that they aren’t finding new great software now.

事实上，我们确实看到了软件的改进，表现为更少的漏洞和更好的性能。事实上，我们确实看到了软件的改进，表现为现有产品中更多、更好的功能。事实上，我们确实看到了软件的改进，但这个“我们”的范围非常有限。大多数人并不经常采用新软件，所以他们现在没有发现新的优秀软件也就不足为奇了。

Many businesses’ software-development processes have subsystems, especially political subsystems, that have not been accelerated with AI. (Imagine the process of getting senior engineers and product managers to sign off on a development plan. The engineers and PMs could use AI to do this better and faster, but perhaps they aren’t yet doing that.)

许多企业的软件开发流程中存在子系统，尤其是政治子系统，这些系统并没有被人工智能加速。（想象一下让高级工程师和产品经理签署开发计划的过程。工程师和产品经理本可以使用人工智能来更好、更快地完成这项工作，但也许他们还没有这样做。）

AI is replacing more durable, longer-lasting software with more ephemeral forms of software or software use, and one might not easily perceive this as “better software via AI.” (If you do your taxes with Claude and don’t bother building or shopping for better tax-preparation software, you don’t quite get the “this product is like TurboTax but wonderful” experience, however much you might benefit.)

人工智能正在用更短暂的软件或软件使用形式取代更耐用、更持久的软件，人们可能不容易将其视为“通过人工智能实现的更好软件”。（如果你用 Claude 报税，而不去费心构建或购买更好的报税软件，你就无法获得“这个产品就像 TurboTax 但更棒”的体验，尽管你可能从中受益匪浅。）

AI is replacing broadly available software with private software. Domain experts are building their own tools; executives are making their own dashboards; companies have bespoke internal projects. So the software is out there, just not visible to the rest of us, and especially not visible to skeptics.

人工智能正在用私有软件取代广泛可用的软件。领域专家正在构建自己的工具；高管们正在制作自己的仪表板；公司拥有定制的内部项目。所以软件确实存在，只是我们其他人看不见，尤其是怀疑论者看不见。

We’re making more software instead of making software better. We’ve always had the choice of (roughly) improving what exists or pushing development forward, and we’ve often chosen the latter. It’s not surprising that we’re still doing a lot of the latter.

我们正在制造更多的软件，而不是让软件变得更好。我们一直都有（大致上）改进现有事物或推动开发前进的选择，而我们往往选择了后者。我们仍然在很大程度上做后者，这并不令人惊讶。

Software teams are capturing a lot of the speedup in the form of more leisure or quasi-leisure time. (To greatly simplify: software teams are offering 2x speedups to their companies. They’re then using tools that allow them to work 10x as efficiently, and taking nice long coffee breaks.)

软件团队正在以更多的休闲或准休闲时间的形式获取大部分提速带来的收益。（简单来说：软件团队为公司提供了两倍的提速。然后他们使用能让他们效率提高十倍的工具，并享受悠长的咖啡休息时间。）

AI improvements in software sometimes push us to use and make software less. Sometimes AI helps me figure out that a software project is a bad idea. Sometimes it nudges me to spend more analog time with humans. Sometimes it helps me find, and encourages me to read, more and better books. The net effect of this for me still involves my spending way more time making and using software, but it might be different for others.

软件领域的人工智能改进有时会促使我们减少对软件的使用和开发。有时人工智能会帮我发现某个软件项目是个坏主意。有时它会促使我花更多时间与人类进行模拟（现实）互动。有时它会帮我找到并鼓励我阅读更多更好的书籍。对我来说，这带来的净效应仍然是我花费更多时间在制作和使用软件上，但对其他人来说可能有所不同。

Most of the time, we’re improving not just software but some system with both software and non-software components. If someone’s Letterboxd (or similar) is working perfectly for them, they’re likely to simply be a bit happier with their video-consumption life, potentially in ways that will crowd out their using other software.

大多数时候，我们改进的不仅仅是软件，而是某种既包含软件组件又包含非软件组件的系统。如果某人的 Letterboxd（或类似应用）运行得非常完美，他们很可能只是对自己的视频消费生活感到更满意，这可能会以某种方式挤占他们使用其他软件的时间。

Again, some of these are speculative and some should be given little weight. This is just presented as an example, however realistic. It’s certainly not tax advice and I am emphatically not a lawyer or tax professional or anything similar.

再次重申，其中一些是推测性的，有些不应被过分看重。这只是作为一个例子呈现，无论它看起来多么真实。这当然不是税务建议，我也明确声明我不是律师、税务专业人士或任何类似身份的人。